I was going to come back and write a thing but then I realized I'm just as terrible at writing return-intros as I am initial ones.

But I've already started writing so there's no going back now whoops, hold on for the awkward ride.

I'm sorry I've not been on here consistently, I'm bad at this. I'm pretty shit at socializing in general and not a hell of a lot better when you mix that with technology.

Not a lot has been going on and so I'll try to keep this modest in size [which is weird coming from me, don't get used to it please~] [Edit: didn't achieve goal in keeping it short] My mania kick ended a couple months back and since I've been pretty meh. The come-down split off three ways, mostly I've been apathetic and unimpressed with the world and mostly myself, I'll have mania in short bursts unexpectedly. I'll notice heightened perception and sensitivity to things I'm already aware of but don't give a lot of fucks about usually [which is sad, but it wasn't this way before and it won't be forever]. I feel empathy always, but not in a way I'm able to express easily. There's sort of a veil of suppression, I feel it internally but I can't incarnate it into warm words or, better yet actions. It's on my own mental plane and it stays its ass there, so what's coming off in my vibes and demeanor isn't really reflective of what I'm perceiving.

Sometimes I do feel an immense and overwhelming fondness and appreciation of nearly everyone, but I keep it to myself mostly so it doesn't just come spilling out haphazardly as spastic soul vomit.

Then there's the hag, the side of me that can best be summed up as a malicious hermit. It'll creeps up at first as sort of a grumpiness, a bitchiness that seems out of place and unnecessary; Disproportionate to the situation, and from there it pretty much lapses into a "Fuck everything". This is the "depression" phase rearing its ugly head as dysphoria incarnate, I'm confident you lot will more than understand.

Fortunately the latter doesn't happen frequently, so I try to just keep it under control until it subsides.

While all this is going on, I compare myself to others a lot. It's not that anyone else has what I want and it is a direct envy, it's an envy by proxy. I don't have what I want but what they have is closer than what I have.

I'll be spending the better part of this year on self-improvement. I'm unemployed and uninsured. I don't want to go too much into it, but I've got medicine for now, it's better than nothing. It's not my full treatment cocktail but it's *something* Something I was on before that worked in combination with other things, Seroquel.

And I have medicine for my pain. It's not something I particularly like or would recommend, but it's better than nothing.

It's looking like my only option is to get a job and press onwards somehow. I'm functional enough but adding in the stressors of work, I'm a little nervous honestly. There's a "sliding scale" clinic I'm being seen by, but appointments are sometimes months in-between.

I don't have really access to better, more continuous care, that I can't do anything about, but instead of panicking I figure I'll just deal.

On the note of self improvement, I'm working on endurance of unpleasantry and appearance tweaks. The job hunting hasn't begun yet in full swing, but I feel that monotonous hard work is my Achilles' heel, and so any path I take will boil down to building that discipline. My appearance is not how I want it at all. For the first time in a while I feel too "fluffy". And too feminine. I have long hair that goes to my hips, it's never bothered me before, but now it bothers me non-stop.

Even though it kills me to leave it as-is in the interim, I want to wait until I have the money and sources and means to get it cut just right. If it comes out looking right, it'll be quite short and I'll look like some sort of elf. Like Link from Zelda slightly, that's actually a terrible analogy but I can't think of a better one.

I hope it will be a "Looking on the outside how you feel on the inside= confidence" type deal. Also because of this I'm sort of shy about being touched or gawked at, really, which is also new for me, but it isn't an issue for now and I'm going to put off dealing with that for as long as I can.

Lastly I'll try to be on here more. For anyone who wants it, I'll provide contact information via private message. I'm not going to put it on here because I feel it'd be pretentious and rude? In a way, because this isn't what this is about. This is a community of coming together, a gathering of unique minds, so I feel I should be less flaky and more consistent about coming here, rather than implying anyone should come to me because that has an entitled feel. I don't know if I'm being paranoid or not but it seems rude and I won't do it.

Also I'm worried I'll give really derp advice, and I try to keep a strict limit on how much I allow myself to talk of myself. At my best I think philosophically and I know trying to solve emotional/situational/neurological problems with philosophy can be grating as hell, but I'll try to provide relevant insight where I see that I can.